Other People's Opinions
Other People's Opinions
In a society where interaction is part of everyday life, and
other people form a vital part of life, other people's opinions
are actually important in where we fit into society. However, we
often think we know what other people are thinking and base our
actions around those 'apparent' opinions.
Yet how do we actually know whether our assumptions about other
people's opinions are true or not? Frankly, we don't. This is
where the Fundamental Attribution Error comes in. To put it into
plain Engligh, it means that we make a basic error in assuming
other people's thoughts without checking or otherwise knowing
whether we are right or not in that assumption.
We base these assumptions on our schema of the world (another
Psychology term which means a system of beliefs we have about
how the world works from how to order food in a restaurant to
how we 'should' live our lives). These schema are made up from
our experiences in the world, with some schema being made up
from other people's schema which we have picked up along the
way: such as our parents' and friends' schemas.
Now mostly, these errors are fairly harmless: it is when we
start living our lives entirely around what we think other
people are thinking that it can become 'dangerous'. Many people
fall into the trap of becoming practically obsessive about what
other people are thinking of how we behave that everything that
we do becomes subject to what we think other people are
thinking.
So how do you stop being like that? First thing to do is to
recognise when you are making these assumptions and when they
are patently false, and put some kind of system in place to
prevent yourself from getting caught up in the negative cycle.
One useful technique is the Emotional Release technique taught
in the Sedona Method where you can quicly overcome the obsessive
nature that can sometimes come from the error. Another way is to
understand why you have the schemas you do and to change them:
often they are out of date and are not actually helpful (as they
are supposed to be). They are also linked to the 'gremlins' (if
you're British you might know the term from the recent spate of
adverts on TV advertising education) - but that's a future
article. Fundamentally though, to overcome harmful errors, it is
all about understanding when you make them and stopping them
spiral out of control.